Pacific Coastal Cruise Travelogue #3

---

Travelogue - Day 3
Boarding Golden Princess in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Hello everyone!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Sunday morning was gorgeous in Vancouver when we woke. There was blue sky above with a few spotted clouds. It was a leisurely morning for Jim and me as we chose to sleep in a bit and then go to Starbucks for a little breakfast before meeting up with Rob and Christie for the four of us to head off to board the Golden Princess.

Rob and Christie what sounded to be a really nice walk back down to Gastown and then stopped at a local place for breakfast. Once they got back to the hotel and we all got ready to head downstairs, we called the bellman to come get our luggage. We headed out the front door of the beautiful Westin Bayshore Vancouver and were able to get a taxi van that held all of our luggage and all of us and off we went to Canada Place where we boarded the ship.

Actually embarkation went quite smoothly despite having to wait a little because Canadian Customs was performing an inspection on the Golden when we got there. After all was said and done, it only took us about 30-45 minutes to actually get through the embarkation process and onto the ship. Not bad at all!

Rob and Christie are up on Aloha deck and we are on Dolphin Deck (3 decks below them). They are on the starboard (right) side and we are on the port (left) side.

We spent much of the afternoon wandering around the ship, unpacking and going to the mandatory muster drill for emergency procedures. After taking off our lovely orange life vests, we headed up to the Lido deck where we stood along the rail and the party began!

There were four cruise ships in Vancouver yesterday. The first one to leave was the Norwegian Sun, followed by the MS Statendam and then by the MS Veendam and then the Golden Princess took off in last place.

We sailed under the Lions Gate Bridge near Stanley Park and the first narrows. Then we followed a path northward for a short while sailing along the coast of British Columbia then sailed around Bowen Island where we reached our anchorage early on around 11:00 p.m. here in Nanaimo. We dropped anchor and stayed here peacefully all night.

The sunset last night was spectacular with the horizon dotted with numerous islands and mountains and the sky turned a set of brilliant set of bright oranges, purples, magentas and every color in between. It was stunning to say the least.

We had dinner last night. We were sat at a table for six, but there were only the four of us for dinner. We called it a night early as we were all tired for unpacking!

---